flâneur

Flâneur

Charles Baudelaire and others have described the concept of the dandy
as ‘Flâneur’; a certain way of people-watching in urban locations that
examines both the general/city-wide aspects as well as the
particular/individual aspects (often simultaneously) of the city and
the populace. Those wishing to know more about the concept of the
Flâneur can examine the link below, which describes the subtleties of
this art-form much more eloquently than myself:

However,
there is a particular type of forensic voyeurism or even ‘psychic
vampirism’ that becomes possible as one becomes more adept at being an
accomplished Flâneur. This is the subject of the following poem which
examines in great detail, this latter and more sinister type of
Flâneur. I have left the English translation unrhymed, so as not to
sacrifice the meaning and intent the poem for the sake of a strictly
aesthetic criterion: